Women's work

May 1, 2009 - Deb Gau

You wind up hearing a lot of bad news as a reporter, everything from tax rates to tragedy. But there are also plenty of things that give you hope, and make you think maybe we’re much better off as a society than we realized.

Take, for example, the two women I met this week at the Minnesota West campus in Canby, Christine Adamietz and Judy Drown. They are both pursuing careers in fields where you don’t see a lot of women - wind energy technology and electrical contracting, respectively. You can read the article on Saturday, so I won’t give too much away.

One of the things that struck me in talking to Christine and Judy was how little negative reaction they said they got from other people. When I think about how few women I’ve seen in mechanical or contracting professions (not any, really, until now), I wonder if there’s something that keeps them away. Maybe it's culture, maybe it's prejudice, or just personal preference. But although Christine and Judy said being in an all-male workplace or classroom takes a little getting used to (“The guys had their own jokes and almost like their own language,” Judy said), they were accepted just fine. They said people tend to be intrigued by their choices instead, just like I was.

It’s good to know that gender conventions aren’t a deal-breaker for people in our area. Maybe now all we need to do to see more women wind energy techs is to remind girls that they can do that, too.